Cult PC Game Being Remade For The 3DS

Cave Story, an indie PC game released over six years ago, is still winning new fans today following subsequent releases on the Wii and DS. Now it’s being remade, in 3D, for Nintendo’s newest handheld.

Cave Story 3D is a complete remake of the original platformer, with every character and every level transformed from its humble 2D, pixelated origins into “2.5D”, which is a two-dimensional game giving the illusion of three dimensional space.

This is normally where I’d suggest this would be great news for fans, but I’m not sure. Part of the appeal of the original Cave Story (pictured left) was how lo-fi and simple its look was. The shot you see above makes it look more like a PS2 platformer, and while this won’t affect how the game plays – and it played as good as it looked – it may put off some of its older fans.

Then again, those older fans have already played it. A full, retail release on the 3DS will only put it in the hands of thousands of new ones!

It’s scheduled for the 3DS’ “launch window”, which could mean March, or could mean June.

PS2 platformer would be a bit generous, given that single screenshot.
I was excited to hear about this, especially since Pixel's more closely involved with this version than the Wii/DS ones. The concept art looks great, too.
But Cave Story's good old 2D sprites were great, and the Wii/DS versions were also great. If you're going to change it to 3D you need to do a damn good job with that 3D if you want to match the quality of good sprite work, and from that screenshot, it needs work.

Still, it's in early development, so there's plenty of room for improvement.
I'm kind of split on the music, though. They said they considered going for orchestral or rock arrangements of the music but that it didn't really work and so they're going with music with an 8-bit feel, which is disappointing. The original's music was great, and the Wii version's music tried to do the same thing but turned out sounding extremely lazy and lacklustre. I'd rather hear the music be given a new sound to it if they're also changing the visuals.

What's more interesting is that Pixel says we could be seeing a sequel soon. That's something to definitely get excited about.